


Stardust

by Jade4813



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry's Disappeared, F/M, Post-Crisis, original timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 06:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19785109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade4813/pseuds/Jade4813
Summary: Three months after Barry's disappearance in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Iris looks up at the stars and ponders the destiny that brought him to her...and took him away. Written for the Westallen Meet Up Fanfiction Event on Tumblr.





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [backtothestart02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtothestart02/gifts).



_“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in_  
_your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand._  
_It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust…  
_ _The stars died so you could be here today.”_

_\- Lawrence M. Krauss_

**_July 25, 2019_ **

Iris hated the stars, she decided as she threw a fulsome glare at the sky, hoping some errant clouds would get the point and hide the twinkling lights from view.

Well, okay, she admitted to herself on a disgusted sigh. She didn't hate the stars. It wasn't their fault that they made her miss Barry. A light breeze blew across her cheek, as soft as his touch, and she closed her eyes. Her head tilted back towards the sky, she wrapped her arms around her waist and breathed deeply, imagining the arms around her were not her own. If she tried hard enough, she could almost remember the exact smell of his skin, as clearly as she remembered the deep rumble of his voice in his chest when he held her.

_"So, Iris? How about it? It’s a beautiful night, and everyone agreed to take over Flash duty for me. I’m all yours. Want to go out and look at the stars?" he suggested with a grin, leaning back against the kitchen island, the movement causing his muscles to flex and shift in a tantalizing fluidity of movement._

_He had done this more and more frequently over the past few months, stealing time away for the two of them to be alone together. Neither of them were strong enough to admit why. They didn’t have much time left to enjoy these precious moments, and they knew it. Barry’s disappearance – and apparent death – was foretold in a newspaper from the future. They had resolved not to give in to despair, determined to fight fate. And yet it was a dark cloud that hovered over them, stealing the lives they had dreamt of building together with every second that ticked by._

_Iris pursed her lips. “All right,” she conceded. In all honesty, she’d accompany Barry anywhere. To another planet, another world, another time, another reality. Anywhere he wanted to go, just for the chance to hoard these precious seconds with him._

Kicking off her shoes, she dug her toes into the soft, muddy ground at the edge of the water. Night after night, she was drawn to the lake where Barry had once told her they’d shared their first kiss, before he accidentally travelled through time and erased it. Where they’d finally exchanged their wedding vows after their planned ceremony was interrupted.

Her eyes stung, and Iris told herself it must have been due to the wind as she dropped her arms and pulled her gaze away from the sky. She heard laughter behind her, and turned to find a couple strolling by on the street. In response, she scooted a little further down the riverbank, not wanting to relinquish her moment of privacy just yet.

There were so many memories of herself and Barry, just the two of them. She couldn’t count the number of nights that she’d laid in bed, her mind reliving every detail of their time together. Sometimes those memories brought her comfort. Sometimes – like tonight – her memories of the past were an open wound that bled and ached with every beat of her heart.

Not long ago, Cisco had asked her if she regretted loving Barry, knowing she would one day lose him. They had been through so much together, and the truth was, it wasn’t the first time she’d lost him. Still, this was different, and Iris understood what Cisco meant but refused to say. Every time she lost Barry in the past – even when he sacrificed himself to the speed force – there had been a sliver of hope that he would come back to her. Even when that hope hurt too much to hold on to, it was there. But now? Barry had disappeared, just like the newspaper had foretold. Nora, their erased daughter from the future, had once revealed that he would never return. If the newspaper headline – the headline Iris herself wrote – was true, then didn’t that mean all of it was true?

Iris would never regret knowing Barry. Loving Barry. She treasured every single second he had been a part of her life. He used to talk about destiny as something to treasure, because it always brought him to her. For her, destiny had become something to hate, because it always took him away. Still, she could remember his voice in her ear the night before he disappeared.

_“Promise me this isn’t the end, Barry,” she murmured, listening to the steady beat of his heart as they laid there in the dark. “Whatever happens tomorrow, promise you’ll come back to me.”_

_“I’ll come back to you, Iris. I’ll always come back to you,” he breathed into her hair, his voice cracking slightly from his sorrow. It made his attempts to comfort her even more heartbreaking. “What that newspaper says…it doesn’t have to be our destiny.”_

_Her fingers dug into his side as she pulled him even closer, as though she could protect him from the future if she only held him tight enough. “Don’t say that word. I don’t want to hear it ever again!” she swore vehemently. “I hate it! It seems every time we talk about destiny, it’s our destiny to lose each other. There’s no such thing as destiny, Barry! I don’t believe in it, and you shouldn’t either! We’ve changed the future before and we’ll do it again tomorrow.”_

_Barry shifted, and when she looked up at him, he pressed a kiss against her lips. “I don’t hate destiny. It was my destiny to love you. How could I hate anything that brought me to you?”_

But she didn’t have his appreciation for destiny. Particularly when she thought about the nights they had curled up in each other’s arms and talk about the future they envisioned sharing in a lifetime of tomorrows. Tomorrows that would never come.

“He would love this,” she sighed as she stared back up at the sky. Like she had on that night, when he carried her out here to show her the stars. Had it really only been three months since she’d lost him? It felt somehow both like a fraction of an instant and an endless eternity.

_“Come on, just a little bit further,” Barry urged, grabbing her by the hand as he led her to the edge of the water._

_“You know, we could have gone anywhere. Somewhere we could see more than six stars, even,” she pointed out with a laugh. She loved the city she called home, but its bright lights drowned out most of the visible stars._

_He shrugged and threw her an unrepentant grin. “I know. But this place has a special place in my heart. Can you blame me?”_

_The sun would be rising soon, but when Barry slid behind her and looped his arms around her waist, Iris decided it could take its time. She leaned back against his chest and sighed, feeling more at peace than she’d ever found herself to be with anyone else. As they stood in silence, he bowed his head and brushed a soft kiss against her shoulder, and she snuggled deeper into his embrace._

It was such a perfect moment, and Iris had reiterated her determination right then that nothing would ever change between them. That nothing could take him away. Even after everything that had happened between them over the years – secret identities, evil speedsters, time travel, death and disappearances and even imprisonment – she still had that feeling of peace and contentment when she was with him. Perhaps she always would.

There was something about Barry that had always come so easily to her. Which was probably why she couldn’t help but love him for most of her life. Even though she’d tried to deny her feelings for years because the very thought of loving someone that much scared her more than she could say.

_A young Iris stared as the car lights disappeared around the corner. Her mommy had promised that her daddy would be home soon, before her voice cracked as she swore fiercely that she loved her very much. But now she was gone, and Iris was alone. Somehow, even at six years old, she knew deep down that her mommy wasn’t coming back. Her fingers pressed against the windowsill, and her breath fogged the window. Her little nose pressed against the glass, and she strained her eyes, trying to catch one last sight of the car._

_When she could no longer see even a faint red glow, her eyes drifted to the sky. Her mommy used to sit with her beside this windowsill at night while she read her a bedtime story. And then, every once and a while, her mommy would point up at the stars and tell her to make a wish. She used to say that sometimes people got their wishes, but Iris was beginning to suspect that was just one of those things grownups told little kids, even though it wasn’t true._

_But maybe it was worth one last try. Iris nibbled on the inside of her lip as her eyes scanned the sky, looking for a star that looked like it had promising wish-granting potential. She finally picked one that seemed to twinkle just a little bit more than the rest, and then she scrunched up her face and wished with all her might._

_“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…” she dutifully recited, lisping a little through the brand new gap left behind by a missing tooth. Technically, this wasn’t the first star she’d spotted tonight, but she hoped the stars wouldn’t mind. “I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”_

_A little crease formed between her brows as she concentrated as hard as she could. She wanted her mommy to come back. She wanted her daddy to not have to work all the time, getting called away even on her birthday. She wanted someone to love her too much to leave her behind. Pressing her palms hard against the glass, she squeezed her eyes shut and whispered her deepest wish towards the sky._

For years, Iris had built defenses around her heart, had from the very thought of being in love. She’d accepted that love was great in theory, but it was terrifying in practice. To love someone and lose them…? She couldn’t think of anything worse. So when Barry had come along, she’d been his friend for years while telling herself she didn’t want anything more. And then…well, everything had changed. He was struck by lightning, spending months in a coma. It was the worst kind of heartache because he wasn’t even hers, and she’d lost him anyway.

When he awoke, she didn’t realize her feelings for him right away. But it wouldn’t be long before she did, and perhaps it was inevitable that she would. Her love for Barry had only grown year by year, until it was deeper than she ever could have dreamed possible. Loving him was both more wonderful and more painful than she’d ever imagined.

She’d been compelled to drive out to see the stars tonight after hours spent thinking about all the singular, insignificant events that, combined, led to the two of them meeting. Becoming friends. Becoming…something more. Falling in love. Finding each other again and again and again.

It was almost enough to make her wonder if it he was right, no matter how much she wanted to rail against the thought now. It wasn’t an accident that the two of them had found each other. That, perhaps, he was right about destiny.

_“Why the sudden desire to see the stars tonight?” she asked, leaning against his solid warmth._

_In reply, Barry grabbed her hand, linking his fingers in hers. Then he held them up so she could see. “Carl Sagan once said that every part of the world around us – every part of us – is made from the remnants of collapsing stars. That we’re made of starstuff, flung across the universe until eventually – miraculously – coming together to make us who we are.”_

_“That’s…kind of beautiful,” she breathed, turning in his arms and wrapping her arms around his waist._

_“But think about it, Iris. The atoms that make up who we are came from hundreds of thousands of stars that died billions, maybe trillions, of light years away. They came all this way to create me and create you. And everything that we’ve gone through together, we’ve found each other again and again and again. If I lived a hundred lifetimes, I’d love you in every one of them.”_

_“I’d love you too, Barry,” she said with a puzzled frown. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with why you wanted to come out here tonight.”_

_He smiled, stroking her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Because if all those atoms travelled all that way to be part of me and part of you, then I can’t help but feel like it couldn’t have been for nothing. I was born to love you, Iris, and no matter what we face in the future, I’ll find you again. Whatever happens, when you look up at the stars, I want you to remember that.”_

With a sigh, tilted her head back to look up at the sky one last time. She thought of fate. Of stardust. And of all the moments that had to fall into place for the two of them to find each other. Again and again. It was almost enough to make her want to believe in fate. And maybe even a little bit in magic.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,” she murmured. Then she closed her eyes and wished, as hard as she could, that if the stars brought Barry to her once, they could do it again. That they could bring Barry back to her. 

Hoping that, this time, her wish would come true.


End file.
